Thread: Need help pricing job

I am primarily into lawn maintenance and pesticide application. A client wants a price on planting ground cover on a bank. Probably going with periwinkle due to the shade. Area to be covered is about 1000 sq ft. and I've been advised to plant at least every 18 inchs.
If my calculations are correct, that's about 500 plants. (13 rows X 33 plants/row) Any advice on how much to add for planting what be much appreciated.

Are you going to purchase the six packs? 4 per flat. That right at 21 flats. How many flats do you think you can plant in an hour? After the bed(s) are prepped, I think that one person could do 2 flats an hour. Easiest way I have found is to just a the simple hand spade. Take one scoop out of the ground, put in plant, fill in topsoil, repeat. 2 flats an hour+21 flats=about 11 hours.

The Chicago Botanic Garden advises that Vinca minor be planted 6-14" apart. 18" is a bit far. The disadvantage of this distance is the amount of time it will take for the bed to knit together and form a complete ground cover. The bigger spacing saves money but can cause weed problems as it takes longer to grow dense enough to block weeds.

At an 18 inch spacing and 1000 square feet, you need 444 plants.
At a 14 inch spacing and 1000 square feet, you need 735 plants.
At a 12 inch spacing and 1000 square feet, you need 1000 plants.
At a 10 inch spacing and 1000 square feet, you need 1429 plants.

We planted vinca for the same reason, shade tolerance. We planted about 800 square feet. We prepped the bed and then I laid out stakes (rebar) on the ends of the bed so I could set up three string lines, moving them down as they moved. They planted three rows at a time (reach only gave them 24" to 30"). The guys used weeding knives (AM Leonard) as their trowel/planting tool, the soil was soft. The tool is about 9" long ish, so served as their measuring stick. Each plant was installed 9" ish OC with with string lines being about 9" to 10" apart if I remember.

Since the bed was so large I wanted the installed plants to look orderly, I didn't want heavy or light areas of plants. Vinca also doesn't spread/fill in so quick, so I knew it would take two years before it filled in. Looks great now three years later.

The layout took no more than an extra man hour to execute, no guess work on the installation for the guys, no hesitation either. I think they planted about 30 flats (600 plants) in about 6 hours, for a total of about 12 hours. I don't recall exactly, but this seems to be about right. More than 1/2 day, less than full day. This did not include mulching.